Violins "go to sleep" if not played for a long time ... | Hacker News Reader

Violins "go to sleep" if not played for a long time ...

I was chatting with a professional musician the other day, and she said something that caught my interest. Apparently a really good violin will, if not played for a few months, "go to sleep." It's difficult to say exactly what this means, but apparently its tone dies, it becomes "less bright" and, to the professional ear, "sounds sleepy." If played again regularly and frequently for a few weeks it will then gradually "wake up" and become its former self.

Theorists occasionally doubt it and skeptics demand double-blind tests. Practitioners laugh at them. Many have experienced it "first hand."

I hypothesised that the wood contracts and becomes "tighter" when it's left alone, and that the vibration of playing will open up the texture. She hypothesised that the glue will expand while playing, and when left alone will tighten up.

However, I've looked around a little and it's apparently a well-recognised phenomenon.

I would never have guessed, and found it interesting.

Compare and contrast:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22software+rots%22

View on HN

Speaking as a (non-professional) violinist: Yes, this is a well-known phenomenon; and it affects cheap (~$10k) violins, not just really good violins. Also, it doesn't necessarily take a few months -- even a week or two is enough to cause a noticeable difference -- and the solution isn't merely to play the instrument (although any playing helps) as it is to play loud -- the louder the better.

The best explanations I've seen involve crystallization of the varnish (rather like how bread goes stale via starch crystallization), but I don't believe there has ever been any conclusive scientific study done of this.

.oO( a breadbox with speakers inside it to keep bread fresh )

Some people have suggested putting speakers inside violin cases for exactly this reason -- but I doubt it would work. When a violin is played, the wood vibrates far more than the surrounding air (if it didn't, energy wouldn't be transferred from the violin to the air) so in order to get the same amount of vibration in the instrument, you'd need very loud speakers.

A vibrator has a pretty good form factor for insertion into a loaf of bread =)

Fascinating. If the varnish crystallizes, though, how would playing the instrument again reverse the process?

only affects cheap violins? first time I've heard that one - not syaing it's untrue, but it seems strange. I think it's more likely that a more expensive violin gets looked after - and if it's played regularly, the player is a little more sensitive to the sound since they want to get their money's worth.

I find it really strange that no-one has mentioned the sound post at all - this is a prime part of how the instrument sounds, and it need adjusting fairly frequently.

Also, no one seems to think that the bow makes a difference - or the age of the hair, or the resin and the residue of older resin.

There isn't really a way to prove sleepiness of a violin. The variables are not all able to be controlled sufficiently to do it reliably and repeatably: (some in the list below can obviously be kept the same - e.g. you use the same violin. But, some are introduce a lot of inconsistency.)

1. the player 2. the bow and its factors - resin, tension (yes, they get tightened before everytime you play, and how do you know you tightened it the same?), also centre of gravity does differ between bows, material (pernambuco, carbon fibre) and overall weight (though not by much - most violin bows weigh around 60g, and the variance is about +/-2g). A player needs to get used to a bow in the same way that they need to get used to an instrument. 3. strings - age of string, has the string been played in?, type of string - all metal through synthetic core, metal winding, through gut core, metal winding, through to all gut. the sound differs between even the same type of string - one synthetic core string will sound different to another (cf dominant strings to evah pirazzi). 4. the resin - not as much of a difference between resins, but plenty of room to con people also - heard about the resin with gold flecks in it? makes a hell of a difference to the sound... ;-) 5. the sound post - this is critical. this is not held to the body using glue - it's jammed in place. if this is not set correctly, it really affects the sound. you can get weird effects - e,g, strong lower tones and flat higher, and 6. The bridge - this tilts backwards over time, due to tuning, and additional tension during playing. 7. humidity - some players stick humidity 'worms' into their instruments to keep them at the correct humidity. 8. temperature - affects the strings and the player mostly! 9. fingerboard 'action' - players tastes differ a bit in the action of the instrument - some like a bit more space between the string and the fingerboard, though this is rare for classical musicians. the nut, bridge and fingerboard angle all affect this 10. violin design - fat depth (like French) or thin depth (like Italian). French sound rounder, won't go as loud; Italian sound thinner, goes much louder. Great violins break this rule - e.g. look at a Gagliano - some are loud enough for concerto with orchestra. Then how big is the bass bar? the f-hole's width (& general size)? 11. violin material - what sort of woo? 12. varnish - thickness, type, age, how much UV radiation it's had. 13. dust/dirt and crud that's worked inside the instrument over time

enough for now, this reply is getting abit long, and I should be looking at some Shostakovich... (this may be structured procrastination!)

apologies for formatting - the carriage returns didn't post for some reason...

only affects cheap violins

Sorry, I was unclear. I meant that it affects cheap violins in addition to expensive violins.

There is no branch of art so full of old wives tales as music is. Persistent rumours about the 'touch' of pianists, strange unmeasurable effects that are 'clearly audible to the trained ear' (in other words, if you can't hear it that is an indication you aren't trained) and so on.

Solution: Put a violin that has been recently played with a mechanically operated bow in a closed box with a microphone.

Sample the sound.

Let box sit for 6 months.

Operate it once again, and sample the sound.

Do a subtraction of the two sound patterns, any audible difference should show up clearly.

You might find this produced a positive result. However, a negative result wouldn't necessarily disprove the theory because violins may appear simple, but they are acoustically very complex. Take for example the Chladni patterns for violin plates

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/chladni.html

and remember that this is just one aspect of one component. Other people study directional tone colour

http://www.josephcurtinstudios.com/news/strad/apr00/Gabi_str...

and even the strings can be made from different composite materials for different strings. The strings alone can make a significant difference to the sound of a violin. Has your one microphone picked up all the sounds in all the frequencies and directions and has your mechanism tried all the different bowing techniques for all the notes etc.

Ok, so please design an experiment that would satisfy you if it came out negative.

I'm well willing to accept any such experiment if it comes out positive.

An experiment to prove that a particular listener can detect the sleepiness of a violin:

Buy a couple of violins. Have several violinists play them until they're warm, and record multiple notes per violinist per violin. Then store half the violins away for a year, while the others are played daily. After that, record again a couple of notes per violinist per violin.

Have a listener listen to pairs of recordings, where the two recordings in the pair were recorded by the same violinst on the same instrument, but a year apart. Ask the listener for each pair if the instrument sounds like it's fallen asleep between the two recordings.

The null hypothesis is that the listener will get the sleepiness property right on 50% of the pairs.

Works for me :)

The funny thing is that I think that 99%+ of the listeners will not even be able to tell apart two violins, let alone whether or not one has not been played for a while.

I was composing this while limmeau replied, so some overlap.

We would initially need to calibrate the mechanism and microphones against expert violin players to ensure they pick up all the same nuances of sound. This is because experts hear more than non-experts.

"Two groups of expert instrumentalists (violinists and flutists) listened to matched musical excerpts played on the two instruments (J.S. Bach Partitas for solo violin and flute) while their cerebral hemodynamic responses were measured using fMRI. ... We found an extensive cerebral network of expertise, which implicates increased sensitivity to musical syntax (BA 44), timbre (auditory association cortex), and sound-motor interactions (precentral gyrus) when listening to music played on the instrument of expertise ..." http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=20951540

So if the experts could demonstrate any statistically significant ability to hear certain aspects of the sound, such as being able to distinguish between different instruments, this would have to be replicated by the mechanism and microphone technique. We would have to try to test a fair range of aspects of the sound.

We would then need a reasonably large sample of similar violins, of a quality for which we might expect the effect to occur, half of which would be put away and the other half played for our test period.

The mechanism could then be rerun and get a fairly good result.

Q: What is the difference between a viola and a violin ?

A: The viola burns longer...

If Hermann Helmholtz could be wrong about some of this stuff then I have no doubt that people are capable of deluding themselves in to having the ability to hear things that aren't there.

From "The Acoustical Foundations of Music" by John Backus, page 207:

For example, the excellent quality of Stradivarius violins has been attributed to a varnish of almost magical properties used by the old instrument makers, whose secret has been lost. However, resonance curves made on instruments in the varnished and unvarnished condition show that as normally used, the varnish itself has rather little effect on the tone.

What effect it has is more likely than not to make the instrument worse.

"people are capable of deluding themselves in to having the ability to hear things that aren't there". I agree totally. I was assuming a mechanistic way of testing for sound similarity attached to the microphone that would give an objective result. This mechanism needs to be calibrated against human experts.

That "varnish" theory of the Stradivarius isn't current, by the way, perhaps because of the very results you refer to.

The most recent research I've heard of is focused on the treatment that was applied to the wood:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090122141228.ht...

I know, but even though it has been disproven ages ago this stuff gets repeated ad nauseum.

Being able to hear sounds that can't be verified by instruments is not very scientific imo.

That said, there is a lot of stuff going on outside of the range of 'normal' recording and playback equipment, which is why a live performance of a church organ (for instance) is on a completely different level than the best recording of the same.

Violins however fall nicely in the range of modern recording equipment and if you can't record a sound from a violin it probably isn't there.

Doesn't work for me. You have assumed no loss of sound in the recording and playback process. There is a great deal of difference between a live instrument and a recording.

What's needed is a mechanistic ability to distinguish the important sounds. This might be a computer analysing a microphone signal and saying 'this is the same sound'.

Wouldn't it be both simpler and more accurate to simply have the control group of played and unplayed violins, and then hand them to a number of highly skilled violin players (who haven't been playing these instruments) and see if they can identify which have been played and which haven't by playing them? (If you're worried there might be tells on the instruments themselves, do the same experiment and see if the violin players can tell the difference without playing them.)

There is no branch of art so full of old wives tales as music is. Persistent rumours about the 'touch' of pianists, strange unmeasurable effects that are 'clearly audible to the trained ear'

Unfortunately, the best musicians manipulate time, pitch, and all sorts of nuances at time-scales which put them at the very fringes of human perception. Basically, musicians are operating on "magician sleight-of-hand" time.

I had a conflict with my landlord and downstairs neighbor last season, because his ceiling fan would create this constant low-frequency "WRANK-WRANK-WRANK" and intrude into my movie watching and interrupt my sleep.

I could not clearly record this noise! It was mostly low frequency, and annoying because of that, not because of its overall volume. The management was dismissive of what I was saying until I finally cajoled someone from the office to come into my apartment while that ceiling fan was on. Then it was, "Oh, Yeah!"

I have also been going to musician's workshops for a couple of decades now. Some small but significant fraction of the time, master musicians who are trying to describe what they are doing get it wrong! They are sometimes operating so close to the limits of their neuro-muscular capability, it's hard for them to be fully conscious of what they are doing.

That said, there is a LOT of bullshit going around in music for the very same reasons. Often empirical measurement clears this stuff up, and thank god. But it's not going to solve everything easily.

Next time you have this, try this:

Stick a needle in a table and glue a lightweight crystal microphone to the needle, attach the output of the microphone to a scope.

What you are perceiving is most likely the difference in frequencies between the fan and something else, that's why it is outside the range of your microphone. But by sticking the needle in the table you use the inertia of the microphone attached to it, and a crystal mike has a fairly rigid membrane (and is ridiculously sensitive this this kind of direct action on the crystal that makes the sensor).

So, when the table moves under the microphone because of the vibration the microphone will try to resist the movement because of inertia, the force will show up as a reading of a voltage on the scope.

Subsonics are very annoying.

So, when the table moves under the microphone because of the vibration the microphone will try to resist the movement because of inertia, the force will show up as a reading of a voltage on the scope.

If I wanted to use this to document the noise in court, this still wouldn't help me. Even if I did a "baseline" for comparison, how do I bridge the gap between the readings on the scope and the concept of "annoying noise" to the judge? There are ways, but the more stuff I have to do, the more it seems like contrivance to the layperson.

Of course, I don't really want to take this to court, but this illustrates my problem in any legal context.

It also illustrates the problem of dealing empirically with direct experience at the fringes of perception.

This won't work for a simple reason: No violin sounds the same as itself from one day to another.

Violins are made of wood. Wood is acutely sensitive to temperature and humidity. Moreover, a stringed instrument made of wood is also sensitive to time: The strings stretch, thanks to the well-known phenomenon of "creep". They move around on the bridge as the rest of the instrument expands and contracts. They also stretch and shift with use. Violins use friction-fit wooden tuning pegs, so they certainly won't stay in tune over time.

Then, even if you place the instrument in a temperature and humidity-controlled environment, as soon as you take it out of the case and play the thing all bets are off. A violinist is a big, moist, warm thing, in intimate contact with the instrument, who keeps moving the strings back and forth and up and down while applying strain to the neck.

Nobody who actually plays an instrument like a violin [1] would doubt that a violin that sits in a box for six months will sound different than it did on the day it was put into the box. The only question is whether the difference is systematic or random, and whether there is really any "mystery" there. I would hypothesize that if you stored your violin under conditions which simulated (to a sufficient degree of accuracy) the temperature, humidity, and (perhaps) string-stretching cycles that occur when the violin is used, you would find that the "mysterious" "sleeping" phenomenon would become undetectable. But by that point you've gone to an awful lot of trouble just to rediscover the usual rule of thumb: To keep your instrument sounding like it would if it were regularly exposed to a violin player who sweats just like you do (and constantly retunes the instrument to compensate), just play the thing every day!

---

[1] I play the banjo. It's even worse. It's very hard to get the darned thing into tune at all (the source of endless banjo jokes) and it goes out of tune very quickly. The pros spend a lot of time cursing airplanes (which tend to expose your instrument to a fairly profound temperature and humidity cycle, especially if you check it into the hold) and stage lights, which are nice and warm, and which therefore start putting your instrument out of tune the minute you go onstage. But even beyond that: The tone changes when you change the pick angle subtly, or put more or less pressure on the big drum head under the bridge, or put any strain on the neck, or stand differently relative to the wall...

Only real empirical data will really solve this mystery (and coming up with good tests for this problem is surprisingly difficult) but I'm willing to bet the only thing that 'wakes up' is in the mind of the violinist. Violins all have unique and very recognisable sound and most serious violinists play their instrument every day, often for several hours. When they first pick an instrument and until they've played it for a while (regardless if it was after not playing at all or playing a different instrument) their perception of the sound of the violin will be slightly influenced by the particular sound of that violin. Because of paying attention to the sound of the violin they process the nuances of the sound influenced by their playing less, but since they are not aware of that, they simply perceive the sound coming out of the violin as less nuanced. In other words, tired. After playing the same violin for a while the mind of the violinist gets used to the instrument and cancels the unique features for that instrument. The player starts perceiving more of the effect their playing has on the sound, and with the added detail the sounds 'comes to life'.

  > I'm willing to bet the only thing that 'wakes up'
  > is in the mind of the violinist.

Really? When was the first time you heard of this? Today? And so based on zero first hand experience, and having never heard about this before, you're willing to be it's all in the mind. The three professional musicians I've spoken to about this - all violinists - say it's absolutely real.

I'm not in a position to design and execute a suitable experiment, but I'm interested to know: just how much would you be willing to bet that you, in your near complete ignorance of the matter, are right?

I wouldn't bet a lot, but if I was forced to bet, I'd bet mental effect. (I'm not the person you replied too.) The simple truth is that the more subjective arts are just shot through with this sort of bullshit, and while some of it is true, the vast bulk is simply not true. Audio of all forms (music and playback) and wine tasting (see article on HN from a couple of days ago) are very firmly in this class.

Now, it's certainly possible I'd be wrong in this one particular instance, but on the whole I'd win a lot of money if someone were stupid enough to redo this bet on a whole lot of such issues ("bet my expensive HDMI cables beat your cheap HDMI cables?" "bet my expensive wines are better than your cheap wines in a blind taste test?") on 1:1 payout odds.

Also not the addressee, but I'd probably bet at about an 80% confidence level that you could not demonstrate a consistent preference for the sound quality for an instrument that has been played recently versus one that has been sitting in a climate controlled environment for a year. This means there is a real chance that I'd lose, so I have to base my bet size on what size loss I could sustain. For me, that would mean I'd bet up to several (single-digit) thousand dollars.

My actual confidence level is somewhat higher, but I have to factor in the rate of false-positives. And while I certainly could be wrong, and I'm certainly not an expert in this area, I don't feel like I'm going in blind: I have a general physics background, I've done basic violin repairs, and I have a general sense of how difficult it is to prove any consistent effect regarding taste and perception.

[Edit: why are people voting RiderOfGiraffes down for asking question?]

I've heard about this before and have thought about the problem, but even if I hadn't, hearing the same superstition repeated many times does not make it real. I'm willing to bet a small sum of money, say, $100 for 75%, but as I said, I tried to come up with a good experiment and I find it quite hard. I think that a more productive continuation to the discussion would be a collaborative attempt at inventing such an experiment, rather than just throwing spewing inflammatory rhetoric.

Here's an experiment that might be possible. There are two versions.

Instead, you need to have a violin that is "awake", and get a sufficiently good player to play it, record, assess, and try to remember it. Make notes.

Then either leave it to go to sleep, or have it still being played. Three months later return it to the player and ask them to play it again. Play them the original recording, let them read the notes, and then ask - has this violin been left alone, or played for the last three months?

Do this many times, perhaps with many violins in the same three month period, some played, some left to go to sleep.

If the theory is true then there will be a difference.

Alternatively, take a collection of violins, some of which have gone to sleep, some of which are awake. Then hand each to a professional player and ask them to "wake it up". Some should change, some won't. Get the players to say whether they think it was asleep or not.

If there's anything to this, I think this latter version could be made to work as an experiment. We're looking for a statistical correlation, so we would need to do it with a moderate number of violins.

I'll trust (professional) practitioners over theorists most any day. I used to be a pro photojournalist and I remember "arguing" with someone over "the best camera". It was me, who has owned and used most of the best cameras and lens' available and who field tested some of the first serious pro digital bodies against a photo enthusiast who had read Consumer Reports and a variety of other reviews and had a fair amount of experience with shooting snapshots. It was ridiculous as he, a non-practitioner from a pro point of view, simply did not understand what really mattered at the highest level of use.

Im always suspicious of stuff like this about musical instruments (mostly inherited from my brother who is a successful musician and says a lot of it is bunk).

There is another famous one with Violins (I read it in a magazine so no online link, sorry) where they put various old and well respected violins up against a couple of cheap new ones (and a fancy new one that supposedly uses fungus to get an amazing sound) and asked some experts to pick them out in a double blind test - with the results coming out pretty randomly.

My brother's main area is brass instruments (though he has picked up the violin in the past) and there is all sorts of similar ideas there: I think the main one is that the brass "adapts" to the player and no one else can lay an instrument as well as it's owner. My brother is convinced this is a bit of psychology mixed with the fact that the player is used to their instrument (which of course varies slightly from the next).

He says when you meet trumpet players at the top of their game who can pick up a brand new instrument and play it just as well after a few minutes practice it throws things into perspective :)

brass instruments are a different game. String instruments apparently get better with age. Brass instruments get worse with age. Lifespan of a pro brass instrument is less than a decade - the sound really does drop off. As the sound drops off (for whatever reason), the player adapts to it, since it's not an even drop off across the frequency range. This is reflected in the resale value of the instruments. Most pros replace their brass every 3-5 years, if not less.

Picking up a brand new brass instrument for a top player and playing it perfectly is totally logical. The big surprise would be for the trumpeter to pick up an old instrument and play it just as well...

Im told by several pro's this is an old wives tale. Apparently a brass instrument does change tone over time because of the corrosion but it is something a good player can adapt to with, say, an hour or 2 practice (my Brother owns a very old Cornet which is considered quite valuable and an extremely good instrument - his colleagues often ask to borrow it for concerts etc.)

It's also been well tested that string instruments don't appear to get better with age :) at least not subjectively to expert ears (in various double blind tests).

Just so I'm clear about this, it appears that you believe several old pros about brass instruments, but you don't believe several old pros about violins going to sleep.

Is that right?

A better way to put it is I've heard both sides of the story; and one strikes me as more logical :)

I'm sure there are lots of links to habit, the "feeling" of the instrument and some affects of ageing. But I don't see a lot of scientific evidence to show a real change in the instrument.

I dont consider that a bad thing: who cares if it s physical or psychological - it's all part of being a great musician and people enjoying it! Every subject has it's mythology.

I think you are off base. My daughter has played cello for quite a few years. She reports that it needs to be played regularly or the sound changes. The music store where she bought this invites violin and cello players to come and play instruments in storage to keep them in shape.

This is not bunk.

that cornet is the exception, and helps illustrate my point - it's about a new instrument being immediately playable, and older ones needing to be 'learnt'.

> It's also been well tested that string instruments don't appear to get better with age :) at least not subjectively to expert ears (in various double blind tests).

which is why my original post says 'apparently'. They get better in terms of antique value, and some differences will happen to the instrument over time - which may make it better, and may make it worse. the antique value is something that really p's me off - the sound quality seems to have no impact on price, while antique value has loads.

Where are these tests anyway?

blind tests are always a bit of a waste of time - you get a player to play 5 different instruments - the one that most closely matches the playing 'profile' of their normal instrument is the one that wins... (assuming they use their normal bow, and set of strings, and that the sound post is set up correctly for their playing...)

Most professional brass players I know personally try and hang onto an instrument for a decade or more. I know people in multiple major orchestras, and they all have instruments they love and won't part with, rather than cycling through hardware often.

Hm. What if it was actually the musician being out of practice that was creating this perceived difference? My mom is a piano teacher, so I've heard a lot of pianos and a lot of piano players over the years. A "poor" piano can sound quite good in the hands of a musical player, and a Steinway can sound "off" in the hands of a mechanical or out of practice musician.

If an instrument hasn't been played in months, odds are the person who owns the instrument hasn't played on it in months either.

Well, presumably this phenomenon has been tested in the hands of professionals who play violins every day. A pro will own several instruments, for example, many of which will be in storage.

Having said that, your point is very real. I find it hard to believe that it's easy to conduct a double-blind test of violins. Violinists are not robots. Put two different violins into their hands and they will notice a difference, and their playing will change. Can you really set up two violins to the point where even a blindfolded violinist, feeling them under the fingers, can't tell when you swap one instrument for another? Same size and shape? Same string tension? Same feel of the finish on the neck? Same bridge placement? Same tension on the tuning pegs?

As you point out, even the sound of a piano is acutely sensitive to subtle differences in playing style, and a piano's sound is much more constrained by its design than the sound of a violin.

I've heard from long-time guitarists that the same phenomenon occurs with guitars. One particular codger who I happened to have a long discussion with insisted that the wood fibers slowly realign as a result of the constant vibration. He claimed that most newly manufactured solid-top guitars will start to resonate more strongly and produce a fuller tone after being played regularly for a month or so.

There's certainly a difference between a guitar that has been played regularly for a few years and one fresh off the shelf. I'm not particularly fond of Martins when they're new, but give them a few years to mature, and it's amazing. I've always assumed this had something to do with the wood fibers loosening up over time along with everything settling.

There's a lot of this stuff in music, though. People will drop crazy amounts of money on old guitars, amps, and equipment, even if the new stuff is a component for component recreation.

There is, though, also the 'crap filter' at work. That is, that yes, you can measure and prove that a 'vintage '59 les paul' will sound better than a new off the shelf '59 recreation. It has nothing to do with the production techniques being better (or worse) in '59 though.

Basically, both time periods ('year X' and 'now') had a reasonable amount of 'crap' and a reasonable amount of 'excellent instruments'. When you take a 'now' instrument off the shelf, you're taking a gamble as to which it will be, whereas as a 'year X' instrument has had a large amount of the 'crap' removed from the pool (destroyed, treated less fairly, etc) whereas the 'excellent' instruments have been treated better and preserved because they're 'excellent' instruments.

50 years from now, they'll be saying that 2009 instruments were made better, and people will be paying a huge amount for genuine '09 vintage instruments. This phenomenon is actually easy to see - in the 70s fender had a reputation that post-CBS (ie 'now') instruments were junk, and 50s vintage instruments were worth spending a fortune for. Here in 2009 though, there is the same '70s fender instruments are pretty damned good' approach that there was then to 50s instruments, people will pay silly money for a genuine 60s or 70s jazzmaster, tornado, mustang or even teles or strats - though obviously the 50s vintags for those are still preferred generally over the 60s and 70s. Again, the 'crap' that was considered common then, has been filtered out of the available pool, leaving a 'vintage = well made' mindset.

Clickable:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22violins+go+to+sleep%22

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22software+rots%22

Are they sure that it's not just caused by the musician becoming used to the violin, thus producing better tone? Would the same effect occur if it were played frequently by one musician then tested by another?

Would the same effect occur if it were played frequently by one musician then tested by another?

Absolutely. Another point of interest: New violins act like not-recently-played violins (which, technically, they are) and violin makers will normally play (or get someone else to play) their instruments for several months before putting them up for sale.

Peter Carter, formerly first violin of the Allegri String Quartet, when playing as a guest in a quintet, was loaned a viola for some months to play before it was handed over to its new owner.

indeed, a maker I worked with put a cam on a motor on the bridge of his instruments, and then swept through all the notes, for a bout a week or so. He reckoned it was about the same as a year's worth of playing. Many little tricks they use to age their instruments...

Does this mean that the person (who hasn't been playing for months) can pick up another, regularly played instrument and it sounds 'at its best'? Is it the violin which falls asleep or the operator (who hasn't played it much)?

Because certainly the musician's skills (focus, nuance, whatever all lumps in - even sensitivity to musical content and musicality) slowly degrade without continual practice.

I've noted over and over that my keyboard instruments get 'stiff' when unused. But so do my fingers, reflexes and skills. Which leads me to ask: isn't it both?

Anyone consider that the difference might have to do with the strings? For example, perhaps the strings gain slack while not in use and the linear density or string stiffness changes as a result.

hurrah, a very good point made at last. Strings do go off, and at different rates. Typically depending on the amount of playing. A pro will change strings around every 6 months, and get the bow rehaired annually - some will do it more frequently, depending on the strings. E.g. Evah Pirazzi strings will go off and sound really really dull after 3 months (for me anyway) - and they're pretty much the most expensive. They do, however, sound ace when new.

Are you sure the instrument isn't simply detuning? :) Honestly, your theory would predict the exact opposite fact. If the wood got more tight when the instrument is left alone its brightness would increase, not decrease. But what's the point of theorizing when musicians would rather rationalize their beliefs than doing a simple experiment?

Do you really think professional musicians wouldn't retune an instrument before trying it out?

I'm not sure my theory would predict that the instrument would get brighter. Violin dynamics are very, very complicated, and just because the wood is tighter, it doesn't always make it "brighter." There may, for example, be higher frequencies, but they may not be excited by as much, and hence might not have the same volume.

I've now spoken with several professional and near professional musicians who all say pretty much exactly the same thing. My wife, who was once a competent amateur, says it's completely obvious.

Finally, the experiment is absolutely not simple, as has been commented on in several other comments.

by detuning do you mean in terms or pitch or in terms of something else? any player normally tunes the instrument's pitch before playing, so this won't make a difference in terms of sleeping.

My wife (a good but amateur violinist) hasn't noticed or heard of this before, but says that her fingers get sleepy if she doesn't play for a few months, and that could explain it too.

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